Ideas and strategies to grow business

February 21, 2014

Media Life magazine, written for media buyers of all stripes, recently surveyed their readers on the competency of their sales representatives who call on them. The results were not pretty.

"Readers’ biggest complaints include reps who do not do their homework on a client ahead of time, reps who constantly badger them with phone calls, reps who give them incorrect or incomplete information and generally waste their time.

They agree that while there are some great reps out there, the majority of them do not know their stuff.

'Media Life asked, “Have sales reps become more or less competent over the past decade?”

More than half, 54.4 percent, of readers chose this answer: “Less. Many of these young people don't understand the basics of business, much less how to help me and my clients.”

Buyers were quick to supply stories to support that claim.

Noted one reader, “I once received an entire presentation deck/plan done for me that was actually for our client's biggest competitor and not our client, complete with rates. We couldn’t believe it.”

Just over a quarter, 26.5 percent, said that sales reps are about as competent as they were 10 years ago. And just 19.1 percent said they’re more competent.

Further proof of readers’ increased frustration came from another question. Media Life asked readers what percentage of sales reps really know their stuff and are helpful.

Sixty-one percent answered that 40 percent or less know their stuff."

Sometimes media buyers will not tell you what they're really thinking. I think if they did many media salespeople would have a lot to think about.

November 15, 2012

Media buyers who buy the products publishers sell now divide the media they manage into three categories:

Earned media,largely social media where organizations "earn" exposure by posting content on services like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Owned media, media a marketer owns like their company website, newsletter, or blog.

Paid media, third party media, which is most of what publishers sell to marketers.

But consider the emotional message these labels send.

"Owning" your own media makes marketers feel great and in control. Owning is good!

Everyone loves to "earn" free exposure on social media platforms.

But who really wants to "pay" for exposure they might be able to get for free through social media?

Of the three media categories, only "paid media" is named for a negative characteristic.

How did this happen? These category names came into common use around 2008 when social media was being added to media budgets. With the need to contrast social media with traditional media, the social media centric thinking of the time renamed traditional media as it contrasts to social, suddenly we became "paid media." This label casts a negative implication every time it is used.

There is a fix. Publishers need to work to change the label from "paid media" to "third party media," which is more descriptive and offers a significant benefit. While earned and owned media are highly effective at reaching existing customers, third-party media is far more effective at reaching non-customers. Current customers are much more likely to visit a company website or subscribe to a company newsletter. Non-customers, less so. Current customers much more likely to participate with a company Facebook page or subscribe to a company Twitter feed. Non-customers, not so much.

Third-party media, reaches customers and non-customers alike.

But it is no secret that marketing budgets have seen a big shift in the last few years. While marketing budgets have remained flat for the past few years dollars have moved out of third-party media (paid media), and into owned and earned media. This trend may have gone too far.

In a study my company did earlier earlier this year that measured the marketing effectiveness of 34 companies in a B2B market and found that marketing was effective with an average of 55.6% of current customers, but only with 10.6% of non-customers.

There is a real case to be made for the benefits of third-party media. The more important winning new customers is for marketers, the more important third-party media becomes. I we can reposition what we sell from being "the media you have to pay for" to being "the media that best communicates with NEW customers" our media sales job will get easier.

October 26, 2012

If your sales staff sells traditional media, understanding how paid search works is a big plus. Today, about half of all online ad dollars go to search, so it is important to understand where most of online money now goes.

The first step is for media reps is to ask clients how much of their ad budget goes to search. Many are surprised at how much of the marketing plan goes to an advertising form that started in its current form only 12 years ago, as 2000 was the year Google first started selling advertising based on keywords.

The year search really broke out was 2008. In that year Google indexed a trillion web pages, but more importantly, acquired web analytics giant DoubleClick enabling them to, "dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurably and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies."

Leveraging the resources of DoubleClick, Google was able to improve the metrics for advertisers and offer "more precise metrics in order to judge the effectiveness of their campaigns." With improved metrics came better documentation of the effectiveness of search and and improved sales.

The year 2008 was also the year B2B print advertising, a medium challenged with documenting results, started to falter. Coincidence? Hard to say.

But lets look at the present. A recent study of B2B marketers from Marketing Sherpa showed budget allocation for paid search is now ahead of print advertising, no small feat for a medium whose ads often cost between 30 cents and five dollars each. Think traditional media does not compete against search for ad dollars? Think again.

Do your media reps know how to position their prodcuts against paid search? It would be best if they could.

October 23, 2012

Nine years ago I was working for a print trade magazine so full of ads that when we put the issues we had in our trade show booth reception desk, the weight of them broke it. Those magazines were packed with ads. Today, trade show reception desks are largely safe from this danger. Two questions:

First, what does it take to break the desk today?

Second, considering how much has changed since I took these pictures, what will things be like nine years from now?

Your thoughts?

PS, I took these pictures of issues of Broadcast Engineering magazine at the 2003 National Association of Broadcasters show.

October 02, 2012

Angie Hicks Bowman, co-founder of the home service rating company that
carries her name, is one of the smartest marketers I have ever interviewed. She
started her company as "Columbus Neighbors," personally going door to
door in Columbus, Ohio to sign up members and collect ratings on local
contractors. After her first year of door knocking, her company had 1,000
members. Today, that number is over 1.5 million paid members.

When my wife Lynn became an Angie’s List member, a monthly print
magazine started showing up at our Brooklyn brownstone. I was intrigued. In a
time when many marketers are scaling back print magazine marketing investment
to favor digital media, here was a prominent digital content company publishing
a print magazine. Retro marketing? Not on your life. In an interview with Angie
I found her rationale for using print magazines so rooted in common sense I
wondered why no one had thought of explaining it her way before.

When I asked Angie why she is sticking with print magazines she said, “I
think people interact with print publications differently than they do with
online content. Angie’s List is essentially a problem solving service. When
people say, “Oh, I need a plumber” they come to us. But our print magazine
allows us to interact with members when they are not in need of a plumber.”
Angie added that her magazine helps differentiate her company in the
crowded online market: “It’s one of the neat differentiators about us. We are
not only collecting all of this content but actually packaging it into this
kind of “news you can use format.”

In addition, Angie said her print magazine helps drive incremental
activity by educating members: “Maybe someone had not thought about buying a
geo thermal heating and cooling system, but read an article about it in Angie’s
List magazine. That person may not have gone on our website to read the article
but read it in our magazine, and it created incremental interest.”
The magazine also serves as a way to introduce new members, said Angie.
“Angie’s List members are busy people, and getting the magazine delivered to
them can be a very easy, great way to kind of break in.” She continues, “I get
tons of e-mails but on Saturday I might sit down to read a magazine at home,
where I don’t want to be sitting in front of my computer. Our members are very
passionate about our magazine and a lot of consumers leave it sitting out on
their coffee table.”
And members love the magazine. Angie recalls, “I remember getting a call
from a member who had a hospital stay during which her daughter came in,
cleaned her house, and threw away her Angie’s List magazine collection. She was
so upset she called and asked if we could send her a whole new set.”

For those of us marketing print products in an ever more digital world,
for my money, Angie’s best wisdom came when she described how magazines keep
her customers engaged even “when they are not in need of a plumber.”
As more marketers abandon print budgets to fund digital initiatives, her
comment reminds us of print’s unique marketing value, which is not easily
duplicated online. When a print magazine arrives in a home or office it can be
read in any physical location, and does not compete for online time with other
websites.

In addition, website content is often “purpose driven” -- designed
for users to choose their own sequence of information as they search for
content and solutions to problems. The magazine experience is different,
because an editor selects the sequence of content within an area of interest.
The magazine read may offer fewer content options, but sometimes it’s really
nice to have someone who really knows the neighborhood be the tour guide.
Like many websites, Angie’s List is a problem solving service, so a
print magazine is the perfect complement.

Need a book? Go to Amazon.com. The latest political news? Politio.com. Tech news? Mashable.com
etc. But what about when you do not need a book, political news, tech news, or a plumber?
Maybe you are sitting on your couch just reading a magazine,
maybe the one published by Angie’s List.

PS: Watch a video produced by American Business Media on our initiative to help publishers sell more print adverising by selling the value of 3rd party media HERE

June 28, 2012

Many media reps who sell both print and on-line media lead their client conversations talking about print. Since it can take as much time to sell a $7,000 print ad as a $1,000 banner ad, this can look like the fastest way to meet quota...or is it?

I have found the opposite is true. Starting with print can lead to lower print sales. Sound crazy? Here are three reasons why:

1. Advertisers would rather talk about digital options than talk about print. Digital media is new and more interesting for them. Honestly, what is there to say that is new and exciting about print advertising that can compare?

2. When calling on smaller and mid-sized accounts there is a very real opportunity to be a hero by helping them understand the chaos that is digital media today. Many of the organizations you call on don't have on-staff expertise who keep up with the changing digital marketplace. If you keep up, you can be of real service to them.

3. Finally, digital media is more strategic than print because of the metrics that show up after a campaign. When you can look at the results together, a great detailed conversation can result.

If you focus client time on where their interests are firrst, you will simply have a better conversation and make a better connection which will be more rewarding for both of you.

I find that by talking about digital options first I become far more valuable to my clients, find out more about their needs, and uncover far more opportunities.

When more client understanding, trust, and opportunities are developed far more productive ways to work print into the media budget will present themselves.

The best way to sell more print advertising is to have client conversations directed by what is most interesting and useful for customers, not commissions. Most often, this means starting your conversation about digital.

June 25, 2012

If you follow the traditional publishing business model in an ever more the digital world it is inevitable. The traditional magazine business model is based on creating content to attract eyeballs, and then to sell exposure (advertising) to them. This basic plan has kept magazine publishers profitable for over a hundred years. But this model faces harsh challenges in today's digital media world. The problem is a far more efficient way to deliver eyeballs online, called "search." Every marketer knows that they can get far more eyeballs and clicks per dollar for their website buying “search” instead of digital media from traditional publishers. Why every publisher does not know this is a mystery to me.

To understand the problem let's look a look at a rough example with the math:

Say you publish a magazine that charges $6,000 for a page of print advertising which gets $1,000 for a banner on it's website. What if running either a print or newsletter ad gains exposure to many eyeballs and results in 75 click thoughs to an advertiser’s website. Depending on the expense of appropriate keywords, a click through generated by Google, or another search engine, could cost as little as 20 cents or as much as $5. So, Google would charge between $15 to $375 for the same number of clicks you are asking advertisers to pay $1,000 or $5,000 for. Argue all you want about the quality of your clicks. With this big of a price difference it is going to be hard to make it stick.

If you don’t think the online advertisers in your niche are impressed by this math,

IAB online ad revenue for 2011 shows the continued growth of search

think again. According to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) almost half of all online ad dollars (46.5%) now go to search. A recent analysis of where Google gets its ad dollars shows penetration into niches traditionally held by publishers.

But there is a better way to compete. The core strength of digital media is not in its ability to deliver exposure to eyeballs, but in its ability to deliver interactive experiences. Why sell one way communication (eyeballs) for what is a fundamentally an interactive medium? With this in mind, a new model for publishers is emerging:

Use content to build data on potential customers. Use that data to build sponsorable interactive customer experiences.

In this contenxt, a piece of data is either the location of an individual (address, phone number, name, company name, e-mail address, zip code, etc.) or information about the individual that explains his or her behavior (buying intentions, current products owned, income, demographics, sex, ethnicity, political orientation, type of car owned, etc.).

What can you do with this kind of data? Let’s look at a that rough magazine example where they are charging $5,000 for print ads and $1,000 for web banners. With the right data, what else could they sell?

June 21, 2012

Should you hire dedicated digital media salespeople or train your legacy reps to sell new online media? At least for local media, Gordon Borrell, President of Borrell Associates, has the data and the answers. His organization maintains a database that measures how well 5,200 local media companies are progressing with their digital revenue.

When he surveyed these organizations on the make up of their sales force and thier performance he discovered the following:

About 51,000 of them are "digital ready", meaning they are expected to sell some amount of digital advertising.

Here's the kicker:

Organizations with dedicated digital reps average 2.5x more digital revenue than those who have their traditional reps selling digital.

Another interesting finding was that the percent of reps who are "digital ready" varied significantly by industry:

Newspapers: 85% digital ready

TV: 50-60% digital ready

Radio: 15% digital ready

That is not a typo, for radio, 15%.

All this is reported in a video created by media consultant Mark Ramsey, President of Mark Ramsey Media, in which he interviews Borrell.

If you want to hear both Ramsey and Borrell speculate on the near comical failure of radio to capitalize on digital media, play the video. If you have anything to do with radio, it's a real eye opener.

January 05, 2011

I just read an amazingly insightful post by Mark Ramsey (left) of Mark Ramsey Media in which he nails the process of making media more profitable by making the content the media delivers more meaningful.

This is a big one folks. Solve this issue and a lot of media sales people on your staff will have a much easier time.

Ultimately it is the content that your media delivers that sets the bar. Ramsey's post is about radio programming, but the issues and strategies he raises are universal to all media. If you want to know the secret sauce to making the content your media shares, read on:

"One of the media genres I work in regularly is Christian radio.

There is something different about a project with Christian format broadcasters from one with more conventional, let alone commercial, broadcasters. And what’s different isn’t simply the source of funding or the familiarity of the songs on the air.

What’s different – what’s palpable – is that everyone on staff knows the brand stands for something bigger. And this feeling is generally lacking for most broadcasters in most formats. But why?

Think about it, what does YOUR station stand for that’s bigger than the format itself?

Maybe you stand for maximizing revenue. Maybe you stand for increasing ratings. Okay those are outcomes, not objectives. But outcomes of what?

Of playing the best music mix? Sure, but that is increasingly easy to mimic nowadays on any number of platforms. Of being ubiquitous and easy? Sure, but that’s hardly defensible in a time of techno-revolution.

What about working to make your community a better place? What about working to tangibly enrich the lives of the tens or hundred of thousands of ears and eyes who care enough about you to come back, again and again, day after day? Show me the fan who affiliates with your brand for “higher ratings” or “more revenue” and I’ll show you the fan with a big title and the corner office at the station.

We talk a lot about social media in radio nowadays, yet how much of our social media efforts are directed towards anything with a social consequence?

Listeners – like you and me – are human beings. And human beings always favor the call to something bigger. If we in radio are guilty of anything, it’s not selling ourselves short, it’s selling short our audiences and their dreams and aspirations. Once upon a time, Steve Jobs lured a Pepsi executive to run Apple with the admonition: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?” Guess what he did? Who would do anything different?

Of course, our stations must be viable businesses – and growing ones, too. But are they successful because we relentlessly seek to increase ratings or are they successful because the audience places them near and dear to their hearts? I would argue that if it’s not the latter, then we risk losing the former.

Fans rave about the extraordinary, not the mundane. The best way for any brand to be irreplaceable is for that brand to aspire to irreplaceability. And minimizing interruptions and tune-outs does not make you irreplaceable. The best way is to stand for something bigger and to prove it on an ongoing basis. That’s the way to motivate employees, audiences, consumers, investors, and management alike.

December 16, 2010

When selling the branded content of your media retweets are great currency. If you can create content, even if it’s under 140 characters long, and have it be retransmit through hundreds or thousands of individual Twitter accounts, it magnifies the importance of your brand in the markets you serve.

The top 10 retweets of 2010 give insight as to what magic the top performers contain. Many are from celebrities, but that alone is not the secret sauce considering the thousands of tweets from celebs that did not make the cut.

First, let’s look at the basic nature of the content contained in the top ten tweets:

Average number of characters per tweet: 69, less than half of the 140 character limit

Average number of words per tweet: 13, short and sweet

Used humor: 5 of the 10

Personally connected: 5 of 10, here the tweet only made sense if you know the person (or celebrity) involved.

Offered wisdom: 3 of 10

So personal connection, humor, and wisdom, ruled the top tweets. Tweets about a personal mood, personal experience, real time experience, or news item, did not make the cut.

Here are the top ten tweets of 2010: 1. Stephen Colbert: in honor of oil-soaked birds, 'Tweets' are now 'gurgles.2. Drizzy Drake: We always ignore the ones who adore us, and adore the ones who ignore us3. Lil Wayne WEEZY F: aaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmm baaaaakkkkkkkkkk4. Justin Bieber: te quiero mucho mi amor5. Al-Qaeda: Just noticed Twitter keeps prompting me to "Add a location to your tweets". Not falling for that one.6. joe jonas: I cry because I love Justin Bieber!!!7. Lady Gaga: I'm beautiful in my way, 'cause God makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.8. Kanye West: I'm sorry Taylor.9. Rihanna: Justin Bieber just flashed me his abs in the middle of a restaurant! Wow! He actually had a lil 6 pack! Sexy,lol!10. shitmydadsays: Don't focus on the one guy who hates you. You don't go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit.

But there was more ingredient.

Each of the top tweets, in their own unique way, captured a universal feeling, moment, idea, or bit of wisdom for many.

Stephen Colbert used humor, but his “tweets are now gurgles” quip defined the frustration we all felt about the BP oil spill. Lady Gaga’s tweet defined her whole unique performance attitude that has mesmerize millions, while the fake Al-Qaeda tweet poked fun at Osama Bin Laden, something we all like to do.

Share humor or wisdom. Both universally appreciated.

Find a way to make a universal personal connection. You do not have to be a celebrity if you tap into a universally known person or personal experience. Few know the Tweeter behind "Shit my dad says," but everyone has a dad. Few know the identity of the fake Osama from Al-Qaeda, but everyone knows who he or she is pretending to be.

As a publisher, your users/readers are focused in a target audience. Think about what would be universal humor, ideas, or emotions for your niche. On the personal side, are there heroes or villains that are universally known? To get the biggest bang for your retweet, tweet about them.

There is nothing like a good universal tweet to bring readers together. Happy Holidays!

December 12, 2010

A study released earlier this year advocates sponsorships over advertising as the best way to monetize podcasts. The Association for Downloadable Media along with Edison Research report that podcast listeners HATE radio style ads but relate much better to "this content is brought to you by" sponsorships. The study says that it helps if the podcast host makes the sponsorship announcement. For content publishers here are the two key charts:

First: when podcast listeners were asked about traditional radio style ads their response was negative with 62% saying they "generally dislike" them. But when the same audience was asked about sponsorship plugs instead 67% responded they "Don't mind them and occasionally find them useful."Sponsorships seems the way to gain exposure for advertisers without without turning off listeners.

There were other findings as well. According to Edison Research Vice President Tom Webster, “A podcast advertising buy is not a redundant media buy for advertisers and marketers. These are attractive, affluent consumers that mass media is losing.” He also notes, “Ninety percent of these respondents indicated that they had taken some kind of action as a result of podcast advertising or sponsorship, and over 40% reported purchasing behaviors, which indicates that they are receptive to the right message, in the right context.”

More findings include:

1. Active Podcast consumers are mobile media consumers - and content creators and advertisers alike should continue to take advantage of that fact

2. Active podcast consumers are not receptive to interrupt advertising, but they are receptive to targeted messages in podcasts

3. There is a "halo" effect ascribed to brands, products and services that sponsor podcasts

November 19, 2010

According to an Edison Research report, “Radio’s Future II: The 2010 American Youth Study,” media usage among teens and young adults are shifting.

In 2000, 74% of young adults, ages 12-24, listened to terrestrial radio. That percentage has sharply dwindled - as of 2010, only 41% of young adults listen to the radio. As many young people have given up their music and newspaper habits, the internet has replaced much of that activity.

Online usage among teens and young adults increased from 16% to 42%. But looks at what is down: talking on the telephone drops from one hour and 44 minutes, per 24 hour day, down to one our and four; reading magazines from 24 minutes to 11, and newspapers from 17 minutes to 8.

According to the report: “The same trend is observable in total time spent with various media. In 2000, teens and young adults were spending close to 2 hours and 45 minutes listening to the radio each day. By 2010 it had fallen to an hour and a half." In addition reading magazines drops by more than half while time spent online goes from an hour a day to almost 3.

But online radio is a bright spot, “Pandora is the clear front runner among online radio services, according to online listeners surveyed by Vision Critical in March. Pandora was cited as the favorite by 27%, and 42% had listened in the past year. No other service garnered more than a single-digit response.”

November 02, 2010

How much traditional TV are people watching? Media Research firm Say Media reports that one out of three people in the US has given up watching live TV for Internet TV and time-shifted video.

Consumers are spending less time with live television and more time with online content as well as time-and-device-shifted premium video content. This group is young, educated and affluent – and are increasingly difficult for marketers to reach through traditional broadcast media.

The researchers identify two groups among those giving up on live TV:

"On Demanders"

-Watch less live TV than a year ago and more streamed video content -Are young, educated, affluent Own 5.4 devices for streaming video -Consume 30 hours of video content weekly -Are least receptive to TV, online and mobile ads

"Opt Outs"

-Do not watch live TV Are younger (30% are 18-24), live in urban areas -Get their video content time and device shifted -Own 3.9 devices for streaming video -Are most receptive to mobile and online ads

Most people I know are viewing more online and mobile video, which really did not exist just a few years ago, but the results of this study seem a little extreme. I'm a little suspect of the results...

Say Media, previously Videoegg, is a rich media advertising network that delivering over 100 million uniques in 400 leading video, gaming and social network sites and applications. Clearly they have lot invested in our believing that video TV viewing has moved on to new media platforms.

According to the methodology, findings are based "a passive behavioral analysis via comScore's opt-in panel, of 1,159 Internet users" as well as eight interviews with "Off-the-Grid households" in Chicago and San Francisco."

While a comScore panel is highly credible source, I believe that someone opting onto one of thier research panels is going to be more advanced in their media consumption that the average user.

For that reason I'm suspect of the claim that a third of all TV viewers are "off the grid" of traditionl TV viewing.

But another findings might be more important that the overall numbers for media sales issues: the qualitative aespects the viewers. Even if comScores panels have more new media enthusiasts than an average sample of Americans, the groups with the panel will likey still maintain their characteristics.

For me this finding is the most important:

Media buyers and sellers take note. Some of the most important TV demograpics are slipping away from traditional TV viewership.